Pennsylvania Forest Fire Museum News

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Last Thursday (9/11) thirty students and parents from the Franklin Learning Activities Group visited the Discovery Center. After the tour they practiced with compasses and tried out the Indian pump! Thanks to Jack Graham, Joe Devilbiss, and Peter Linehan who led the tour.

Friday, August 15, 2014

Yesterday, 8/14/14, the PAFFMA board held its summer meeting at the Pennsylvania Lumber Museum on Route 6 in Ulysses, PA. In what turned out to be the coldest meeting every held in summer, the board discussed plans for the annual meeting in November, the current season at the Forest Heritage and Discovery Center, and other issues. Below are a few photos.

Here we are at the new CCC Memorial statue.

The entrance to the Lumber Museum

Getting ready to discuss business in the breezy pavilion!

A highlight of the trip was the visit to the new recreated birch still. This type of still was commonly used in the area to distill wintergreen from black birch branches until a synthetic wintergreen was developed in the 1960's. This is a fully operational model that can process a cord of branches at a time. Wintergreen is a common flavoring used in many personal care products.

PA Lumber Museum board member, Sam Cooke, attended the meeting, gave us a tour of the outside exhibits, and gave valuable insights on how to make a board more effective. Many thanks, Sam. Also thanks to Roy Siefert for the hot dogs and hamburgs. And thanks to Rick Flowers for the limousine service and driving!

Sunday, June 22, 2014

This summer, putting out a backback pump at the Discovery Center for children to try has proved very popular. PAFFMA president Jack Graham made a target to aim for. We put some Smoky Bear stickers on it. Below, Jack demonstrates the right way to do it.

Monday, May 26, 2014

The PAFFMA has a very extensive collection that can't all be displayed in the Discovery Center. At the last board meeting the members did check out the items in storage at the Bureau of Forestry District 1 office.

Pictured above is a Forest Reserve Officer Badge. According to PAFFMA President Jack Graham:

The accompanying paperwork indicates it MAY have been the actual badge assigned to and perhaps actually worn by Gifford Pinchot. The penciled letter we found folded up with the badge had accompanied it when it was sent from (I believe) the then (1960ish) Stroudsburg District Forester Jerry Robinson to Eugene McNamara. “Mac” had been the Stroudsburg District Forester before Jerry. The letter appears to be signed “GRR” which is how Jerry signed everything.
Very coincidentally, I worked for Jerry Robinson for many years after he switched to State Parks. He is now passed on, but I sent a copy of the letter to his wife to see if she can confirm the handwriting and thus the authorship of the letter.